Ata left with the Japanese

The newsroom was in a mess,

Images of a sludge eroding

The plains of Okinawa in urgency,

The rice bowl tilting slowly

As if this smiling Buddha,

Wanted to laugh some more.

One death, 200 killed

Was the last toll.

Wailing newsroom telephones,

Mothers buzz soft whimpers,

Scattered brothers with flags

White, silent scrolls,

I headed for Vishnu’s stall.

Ata! Did you meet the Japanese souls tonight?

How did they handle their apocalyptic deaths Ata?

And how did you predict your own last week?

Tiniali, where three roads merged

By your shoulder, heard your footfalls Ata.

You walked past the naamghar slowly, alone,

Crossing Muhammad Ali’s mansion,

As I write this pithy little verse.

The stories you told us Ata,

Of the cigarette ghost from Bangkok,

Was true indeed, and I am him.

You clocked 50 panamas,

I smoked 10 smalls today Ata!

But then you saw Ganges embracing the sea,

Now we shed our tears over Narmada.

I missed your funeral Ata!

And Scriptures forbid me to leave

Your dwelling before the 12^th night.

My newsroom spares six days of penance,

And I am 2000 miles away from

The Basil where you prayed for us,

Reciting verses from Vishnu Puran.

May your soul rest in peace Ata!

I will remember this day,

When you went along with the Japanese.

If then else

In five finite parts after two glasses of bhang:

Hesitate and then locate
if then else,
then else,
then else,
OH! Elsewhere there is a place.
A space,
Independence,
which also called interDEEPendence,
may be an interplay.

*******

How often do we remember
prose from our past lives?
Those narratives, forgotten to last forever?
Your mockery, and my words.
Now the sun sets in confused descriptions,
As if directions were erased.

*******

Did you travel from Amsterdam to my eyes last night?
I was dazed, locked in your embrace.

*******

My roles have models now,
I have sold a word for two paise only,
and this word grew,
then there was a forest of stories,
protected by fibreglass dome,
The Tomb of our sorrows.

*******

I am a junket sage,
a crafted image,
of our eyes
that never met.
I was still wondering “if then else”.
Amid blades of summer shades,
Carpe diem.

*******

in times

in times of sedition,
children feared for their heroes,
parents forgot bedtime stories,
narration lapsed,
foundations collapsed.
...in times of sedition,
they served Molotov cocktails
to the numb,
they poured kerosene
on their cotton shirts,
to remain silent.

Untitled

How do I impress upon a mouth,
that my tongue is a snake,
locking love for hours,
in an ethereal daze.

How do I whisper to a pair of lungs,
that we could breathe free
floating as if we were landlocked islands,
on our beds, for days.

How do I tell her hands, and her feet,
that our encounters were perpendicular
to the silences of pyramids,
as we limped across a desert, till eternity.

Bed Time Poetry

son burns the foil
for the son of the soil,
his seventh son could coil
around the story of a pearl:

"the forest bled on the night,
of chlorinating cement water reservoir
to liberate new land of fresh farmer folk,
with flaccid barsoap around their necks.

he cleaned dhobi ghats,
shaved their heads,
performed rites, pissed and drank,
died.

"But the sun burnt in rage!"
for the neo cosmic sage,
space age dweller,
slave of a thread.

inviting plasticine CSR big mouths,
fake awareness shouts,
tout of the future
wrath-trade.

when the warriors narrate,
they bled till death,
in their courtyards,
of dung mopped gates."

On being asked where i lived?

I live in between the semblances
of ancient coastlines and mountains,
between an ethereal crease that appears
on a hermit's meditative face.

I live under a motor car's lamp,
Pilfering grease for their piercing glances.
I live in a garage of ideas, and chat messages,
of a book known for its faces.

I live above the snowline in the mountains,
when hunting season is about to come an end.
I live with foxes, and porcupines,
under the stone huts, counting flakes for a widow.

I live in a barn, reading Animal Farm -- often charmed
by the bovine's indifference to a printed letter,
I live also amid the shadows, threatening them with a light beam
from my electric torch, sold while they were 'loadshedding'.

(Pic: Chakratirth, Diu, India with Sanjana)

Four phone calls = Four paragraphs

I need a source.
A mole or a deep throat,
someone high up there,
perhaps someone in government,
I need a source,
Then I would make four phone calls,
four phone calls = four paragraphs,
four different sides of same coin,
a story, perhaps.
I need a source,
not an inspiration,
I dont trust it,
It doesn't trust me,.
But we have promised,
that we will speak truth.
Connivance of comfort, if you think.

Nomad Song by The Stolen Cat

in three parts:

1.
You called her fallen,
with your swollen eyes,
... her stolen gaze
defied your lies.

the angel who fell
left a trail for you,
the angel who fell
left a song:

2.
But we were trapped in the lines,
in the numbers and words,
in your cardboard boxes,
that said "fragile",
we were shifting
sands from home to homes
to the domes of martyrs
to the shanty tombs
for a candlelight dinner
on a tabletop mountain,
but leaving the undistributed middle,
untouched and unpacked.
the joy of giving
wasn't the politics of trade,
but wait, we just traded your soul
for a domes and chime,
and the temple next door.

3.
Back to where it all began on the tabletop mountain:

"where's the mirth?" said the candle to fly
and the fly burnt with joy, and left
a trail of soot on the table for two.

time's up

filter forest,
pilfer wood,
cobalt warm,
molten gold,
"gabriel's eyes",
the salesman wails,
leftover rice
mark carbon trace.
torrid riddance
is a baked apple,
hold your fire,
the steeple's feeble.
river rhyme,
flooded pine
its time its time

feather glow

feather glow feather glow,
why are you such a lather blow?
your bubbles have caused pain,
those floating faces of disdain.

...Revel slow, isn't too early?
what do we know?
the cross and the plough?
love's a warm burrow.

Finding Devi

the ever expanding space,
was wearing a facade,
of rhizobium and nicotine,
...and that agro cement real estate thing,

charm of my town,
trapped in her body,
she wore not clothes,
but romantic history of her eyes,

sadly the dawn came,
wearing inter galactic glitter,
spattering the milky white yolk
de-flowering my pagan spirit.

they gave me a cross,
an extension of your swastika,
they gave me self doubt,
and a pile of books to trace her image.

there she was,
for a moment,
burning in the liturgy
of a lost portal.

Mada Dayo

Not yet,
there is still time for us to drown,
Not yet,
This heat is still bearable,
Not yet,
We are happy consoling each other.
Not yet,
We congratulate on her loss.
Not yet,
She's just jumping the gun (filled with bullets)
Not yet,
We might be called insecure,
Not yet,
We need more oil for blood,
Not yet,
When the train left on the ripe time.

a pop up

"pop" - when the primordial bliss got disturbed,
"pop"- when i almost ODied over this idea of big bang,
"pop" said the corn inside the microwave,
"pop" -- said a bubble on being launched to the surface from the bed of a distant marsh full of methane,
"pop" goes the seed mistakenly meshed between burning strands of the sweet leaf because this moron was desperate,
"pop" -- the sound of the last drop of water released from a sarkari water supply connection, "pop" -- on the junk tapes bearing the 'philips top ten' label,
"pop" -- is what a puff is called in assamese,
"pop", a consumer degradable grade for everything else that wasn't so popular,
"pop", said the husband to his wife on the morning after,
"pop", goes the cork when sparkly wants to set herself free for your thirsty throats,
"pop", is not about Karl Popper,
"POP" -- nightmare for the fish waiting for idols.

(Screen grab: Panicware)

The Tamarind Tree Replacement

They ran for Krautrock,
they ran for hymns,
with calibrated consciousness,
replacing this hazy wakefulness.

They purchased cars,
Origami cards, mud lamps
for their concrete hearts,
replacing the haunted Tamarind.

They looked at the East
By the West -- a hollow transformation?
If they wrote blank papers,
they drew blank drafts.

They made love,
in their imagined vineyard.
Shouting, as if believing,
once again.

Pagemaker's Panic Poetry

Moot now!
Else grind
No! churn,
Enough! just burn.

Throw?
A three letter word?
No! just trim,
we need a paper tiger.

Ponder?
just say KISS.
page heavy,
but sight dim.

Glottal stops?
Speech therapy
to face a mic, and
achieve accent distortion.

Paste it, no time
for word carpentary,
suffer slip tongue,
so just say KISS.

(pic: www.boyet.com/Articles/FixingEzdslForUnicode.html)

KISS: Keep It Short and Simple

God in exile

Nightwalker or Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke


On a fine morning, my god was assaulted,
bruised and battered, he
surrendered his will to science,
they found his secrets,
told everyone about them.
My god stood naked and defeated,
no chirping of birds, no rainbows,
my land of mist slowly turned into a coal mine.

The defeated God was locked in a temple or
may be at a mosque, but mostly under the veil of reason,
his statues -- replicated, recast, resold,
his songs were now were written and recorded,
And his messengers bask in his glory,
while he was imprisoned in time,
by an urgent need of ours to exceed ourselves,
to defend us from ourselves, and to save us from us.

My injured god is exiled now,
when reason of man took over his throne,
the rulers praise my god, praise his creation,
and tell us how miserable we are in his glory of greatness
Our rulers did speak the truth,
for it was the cause of our devotion.
Some of knew while others fought,
as we were supposed to be mute spectators.

After eons, by a waterfall in the heart of an ancient mountain,
the exiled god perched on the last tree of the forest.
A forest spirit, as they called him,
lived amid the beings dressed in the light itself,
danced around him -- the glowing honeycomb of a million fireflies.

Tiller's song

spill the bean,
let the sprouts grow,
earth needs fire,
but fire needs fire alarms,
just like cows need bells,
and cats become mothers,
we go round and round,
and almost rotund,
till o of the val turns into an office,
and the hubris descends down

Avenger the scavenger

a life spent on avenging,
the mangled remains of our tribe,
meet me sans my mistaken laughter,
behind your favourite scrapyard.
A ruthless desert road, countless skulls,
robbers and lepers, the ills and wrongs,
consuming all for this appetising triumph,
the lonely scavenger has arrived.

I stay inside a box of rain,
Filled with charms and essences,
In the overlapping groves of memories,
As moments testify their presence.

No! These are not archives of my thoughts,
For they are breathing droplets,
Consistent like rhythms of my chaotic heart,
Alive and dead – but only for this moment.

If I were to pen down my thoughts,
Like the way it rains inside this box,
A flood would consume you, and me too.
Shall we just keep it quiet then?

You are welcome to my box of rain,
You could get your raincoat
But I sit naked, and I dare others to lie beside me,
To know the warmth of these globules.

hypothesis

if i am in two minds,
one has me in my mind,
the other is my mind,
settled in a subset,
of agonizing similarities